The Wandering Jew — Complete eBook

“Tell me for the last time, truly, did not my
absence cruelly affect my mother? Had she no
suspicion that a more imperious duty called me elsewhere?”

“No, no, I assure you. Even when her reason
was shaken, she believed that you had not yet had
time to come to her. All the sad details which
I wrote to you upon this painful subject are strictly
true. Again, I beg of you to compose yourself.”

“Yes, my conscience ought to be easy; for I
have fulfilled my duty in sacrificing my mother.
Yet I have never been able to arrive at that complete
detachment from natural affection, which is commanded
to us by those awful words: ’He who hates
not his father and his mother, even with the soul,
cannot be my disciple.’"[9]

“Doubtless, Frederick,” said the princess,
“these renunciations are painful. But,
in return, what influence, what power!”

“It is true,” said the marquis, after
a moment’s silence. “What ought not
to be sacrificed in order to reign in secret over the
all-powerful of the earth, who lord it in full day?
This journey to Rome, from which I have just returned,
has given me a new idea of our formidable power.
For, Herminia, it is Rome which is the culminating
point, overlooking the fairest and broadest quarters
of the globe, made so by custom, by tradition, or
by faith. Thence can our workings be embraced
in their full extent. It is an uncommon view
to see from its height the myriad tools, whose personality
is continually absorbed into the immovable personality
of our Order. What a might we possess! Verily,
I am always swayed with admiration, aye, almost frightened,
that man once thinks, wishes, believes, and acts as
he alone lists, until, soon ours, he becomes but a
human shell; its kernel of intelligence, mind, reason,
conscience, and free will, shrivelled within him,
dry and withered by the habit of mutely, fearingly
bowing under mysterious tasks, which shatter and slay
everything spontaneous in the human soul! Then
do we infuse in such spiritless clay, speechless,
cold, and motionless as corpses, the breath of our
Order, and, lo! the dry bones stand up and walk, acting
and executing, though only within the limits which
are circled round them evermore. Thus do they
become mere limbs of the gigantic trunk, whose impulses
they mechanically carry out, while ignorant of the
design, like the stonecutter who shapes out a stone,
unaware if it be for cathedral or bagnio.”

In so speaking, the marquis’s features wore
an incredible air of proud and domineering haughtiness.

“Oh, yes! this power is great, most great,”
observed the princess; “and the more formidable
because it moves in a mysterious way over minds and
consciences.”